Marine Corps League to honor 50th anniversary of Bartlett hero’s death

The Sgt Walter K. Singleton Detachment #476 Marine Corps League will host a special remembrance ceremony on the 50th anniversary of when Singleton died. The St. Walter K. Singleton Memorial Day will be at 11 a.m. March 25 at Veterans Park in Bartlett. The park is adjacent to W.J. Freeman Park at the corner of Bartlett Boulevard and Bartlett Road.

Singleton, born in December 1944, was a U.S. Marine sergeant who received the Medal of Honor posthumously for heroism during the Vietnam War. He graduated from Bartlett High School in June 1963 and enlisted in the Marine Corps Reserve that August. He entered the regular Marine Corps the next September. He died in an intense enemy engagement on March 24, 1967, when he left a relatively safe position in the rear of his company to move wounded away from the enemy’s kill zone. Before he died, he also killed eight of the enemy and drove the rest away.

In addition to the Marine Corps League that bears his name, several Mid-South locations are named in his honor, including:

Sgt. Walter K. Singleton Parkway, which runs from Memphis to the Navy base in Millington